Gnocchi Success

My kitchen is a flurry of activity, particularly when I have nothing to motivate me into leaving the house. This morning my counters were occupied with dyes of various hues as I toyed with my ability to mix colors in a non-pigment form (the colors of dyes act much more akin to those of light, not pigments...my primary colors are fuchsia, yellow and turquoise). The entire time a baked sweet potato beckoned from the fridge to be used.

I'm certainly glad I baked the huge tuber the night before. Gnocchi was on the menu (in anticipation of a vegetarian guest, who ended up having other plans and backing out of dinner and games). I've never made gnocchi. Several accounts from cooks I know and recipe reviews I read geared me up for the worst. I've had great gnocchi at restaurants. I've also had some horrible gnocchi.

From all accounts it's time consuming and often results in dense, flavorless doughballs with the slightest mishap. Too much flour. Too moist or sticky a dough. Too little seasoning. Too long a cooking time. Too much salt in the cooking water. Too large a dumpling. Poor shaping techinique....so many veriables for something seemingly so simple.

I purused several recipes and opted on one that seemed to have the most consistently positive reviews. While avoiding the recipes calling for ricotta which I felt, though mild in taste, would overpower the subtle sweetness of the sweet potato. I also scoffed at the idea of seasoning the gnocchi with nutmeg, cinnamon or any other vaguely pie like spice. For some I suppose there is little thinking outside of the box...I opted for curry and garlic instead, but it sounds as though others had good luck with rosemary or thyme and Parmesan or blue cheeses.

The recipe called for 2 medium potatoes, baked and mashed. Roughly 2 cups of flour. 1 egg. Seasonings. From the reviews that failed it appeared many people attempted to micorwave the potatoes to soften them for masking. I've never been fond of the consistency of microwave "baked" potatoes over the actual oven variety. That bit of prep last night yielded a very smooth and creamy mashed pulp. The flour went in a half cup at a time, for fear of over doing it and making something more akin to cement pillows. I used the full two cups after the addition of the egg.

And then came the fun part...shaping.That dough was sticky. It was definitely the correct consistency, but sticky. Hands, counter, spatuala all liberally coated in flour I proceed to round a ball of the gooey dough and roll into a long snake. It sucked up flour as I went...but I used all that excess solely to coat the sticky exterior...I did not knead it into the dough. After the first two dozen cuts and rolls I finally got a groove down and began to produce fairly uniform little gems.

Nothing to do now but wait for the company so I could drop them into the boiling water and watch them rise to the surface. That was fun...watching them suddenly bubble up to the top of the pot as if they had dropped a heavy burden from their wee shoulders. 90 little dumplings cooked in about 5 batches for minutes each...

As they floated to the top I spooned them out and set them aside to drain. With the bulk of them cooked, they took one step...a brief saute with toasted pecans to coat them in oil and keep them warm as their tiny brethren finished in the boiling water.

Oh they were tasty. And the 1 pound of potato yielded nearly 180 tiny gnocchi. We'll see in a few days how the frozen batch heats up...a lot of work to be such, but I certainly thought it was worth it. Ross and his co-worker didn't have any complaints either.